Core Curriculum

(Effective Fall 2014)

The core of learning in college is a set of courses that will provide you with the knowledge, skills and educational experiences you need to succeed in higher education. Those courses - called the Core Curriculum - lead to an associate degree from the colleges of DCCCD and transfer to four-year colleges and universities.

Our three-tiered (PDF – 63.1KB) approach ensures that you build fundamental skills upon a solid educational base. But it is also flexible enough that you can choose the courses that will apply to your chosen field of study while completing your Core requirements. This solid foundation of Core courses enables you to meet the challenges of your entire college career head-on and transfer important credits to another college or university while saving yourself time and money. Core courses are guaranteed to transfer to Texas public colleges and universities.

Pre-CORE College Requirements

Enrolling in one or more of the following courses may be necessary if assessment activities and previous academic experiences indicate a need for Pre-Core knowledge and skills:

TSI development minimum for college readiness (Reading, Writing, Math)

Learning Frameworks (EDUC 1300) - This course offers multiple learning strategies that will help you become a better critical thinker. As a strategic learner, you will demonstrate, reflect on and assess your learning by using ePortfolios. [Learn more.]

Speaking and Listening -
This learning category develops your ability to communicate effectively individually, in pairs and in groups. Instructors will place an emphasis on listening, critical and reflective thinking and responding.

Quantitative Reasoning -
This learning category promotes the application of mathematics to increase your ability to solve “real-world” problems. When you are quantitatively literate, you can use logic and critical thinking in new ways.

Wellness and the Human Experience - This learning category allows you to explore a wide range of courses related to who you are and how you relate to the world. The course offers an opportunity for you to examine your physical, social, financial, intellectual, emotional and aesthetic well-being.

Self and Society -
This learning category is designed to compare and contrast your knowledge of social behaviors. You will find opportunities to question the roles both you and others play in addressing the issues of our society.

Scientific Discovery and Sustainability -
This learning category enables you to construct and examine the relationship of the natural sciences to the world around you. Becoming a scientifically literate person can develop your ideas of how science and technology influence one another and contribute to modern culture.

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) is the state agency that oversees all public higher education institutions. It requires that the core curriculum be described and assessed by faculty and institutions in terms of basic intellectual competencies and perspectives, and of specified student outcomes.

READING: Reading at the college level means the ability to analyze and interpret a variety of printed materials--books, articles and documents. A core curriculum should offer students the opportunity to master both general methods of analyzing printed materials and specific methods for analyzing the subject matter of individual disciplines.

WRITING: Competency in writing is the ability to produce clear, correct and coherent prose adapted to purpose, occasion, and audience. Although correct grammar, spelling and punctuation are each a sine qua non in any composition, they do not automatically ensure that the composition itself makes sense or that the writer has much of anything to say. Students need to be familiar with the writing process including how to discover a topic and how to develop and organize it, how to phrase it effectively for their audience. These abilities can be acquired only through practice and reflection.

SPEAKING: Competence in speaking is the ability to communicate orally in clear, coherent and persuasive language appropriate to purpose, occasion and audience. Developing this competency includes acquiring poise and developing control of the language through experience in making presentations to small groups, to large groups and through the media.

LISTENING: Listening at the college level means the ability to analyze and interpret various forms of spoken communication.

CRITICAL THINKING: Critical thinking embraces methods of applying both qualitative and quantitative skills analytically and creatively to subject matter in order to evaluate arguments and to construct alternative strategies. Problem solving is one of the applications of critical thinking, used to address an identified task.

COMPUTER LITERACY: Computer Literacy at the college level means the ability to use computer-based technology in communicating, solving problems and acquiring information. Core-educated students should have an understanding of the limits, problems and possibilities associated with the use of technology and should have the tools necessary to evaluate and learn new technologies as they become available.

The objective of disciplinary studies within a core curriculum is to foster multiple perspectives as well as to inform and deliver content. An imperative of a core curriculum is that it contains courses that help students attain the following perspectives:

Establish broad and multiple perspectives on the individual in relationship to the larger society and world in which he or she lives, and to understand the responsibilities of living in culturally and ethnically diversified world;

Stimulate a capacity to discuss and reflect upon individual, political, economic and social aspects of life in order to understand ways in which to be a responsible member of society;

Recognize the importance of maintaining health and wellness;

Develop a capacity to use knowledge of how technology and science affect their lives;

Develop personal values for ethical behavior;

Develop the ability to make aesthetic judgments;

Use logical reasoning in problem solving and

Integrate knowledge and understand the interrelationships of the scholarly disciplines.

Disciplinary courses within a core curriculum should promote outcomes focused on the intellectual core competencies, as well as outcomes related to establishing perspectives and the basic concepts in the discipline. The Core Curriculum selected by the colleges of DCCCD includes courses that satisfy specific exemplary educational objectives.

Component Area of Communication(CB010 and CB090)

The objective of a communication component of a core is to enable the student to communicate effectively in clear and correct prose in a style appropriate to the subject, occasion and audience. The exemplary educational objectives are:

To understand and demonstrate writing and speaking processes through invention, organization, drafting, revision, editing and presentation.

To understand the importance of specifying audience and purpose and to select appropriate communication choices.

To participate effectively in groups with emphasis on listening, critical and reflective thinking and responding.

To understand and apply basic principles of critical thinking, problem solving and technical proficiency in the development of exposition and argument.

To develop the ability to research and write a documented paper and/or to give an oral presentation.

Communication Elective(s) - must be selected from the following Core Curriculum for Communication courses:

TIER 1 - CORE FOUNDATIONS

Critical Reading and Writing - This learning category prepares you to analyze and interpret printed materials for a variety of different courses. You will be asked to produce clear, correct, and coherent work.

Speaking and Listening - This learning category develops your ability to communicate effectively individually, in pairs and in groups. Instructors will place an emphasis on listening, critical and reflective thinking and responding.

Qualitative Reasoning, Literacy and Research - This learning category develops your ability to solve problems, research information and evaluate arguments. You will be able to use the tools provided to become a more independent thinker.

The objective of the mathematics component of the core is to develop a quantitatively literate college graduate. Every college graduate should be able to apply basic mathematical tools in the solution of real-world problems. The exemplary educational objectives are:

To use appropriate technology to enhance mathematical thinking and understanding and to solve mathematical problems and judge the reasonableness of the results.

To interpret mathematical models such as formulas, graphs, tables and schematics and draw inferences from them.

To recognize the limitation of mathematical and statistical models.

To develop the view that mathematics is an evolving discipline, interrelated with human culture and understand its connections to other disciplines.

Mathematics Elective(s) - must be selected from the following Core Curriculum for Mathematics courses:

TIER 1 - CORE FOUNDATIONS

Quantitative Reasoning - This learning category promotes the application of mathematics to increase your ability to solve "real-world" problems. When you are quantitatively literate, you can use logic and critical thinking in new ways.

The objective of the study of a natural sciences component of a core curriculum is to enable the student to understand, construct and evaluate relationships in the natural sciences and to enable the student to understand the bases for building and testing theories. The exemplary educational objectives are:

To understand and apply method and appropriate technology to the study of natural sciences.

To recognize scientific and quantitative methods and the differences between these approaches and other methods of inquiry and to communicate findings, analyses and interpretation both orally and in writing.

To identify and recognize the differences among competing scientific theories.

To demonstrate knowledge of the major issues and problems facing modern science, including issues that touch upon ethics, values, and public policies.

To demonstrate knowledge of the interdependence of science and technology and their influence on, and contribution to, modern culture.

Natural Science Elective(s) - must be selected from the following Core Curriculum for Natural Sciences courses:

TIER 2 - CORE DOMAINS

Scientific Discovery and Sustainability - This learning category enables you to construct and examine the relationship of the natural sciences to the world around you. Becoming a scientifically literate person can develop your ideas of how science and technology influence one another and contribute to modern culture.

Component Area of Humanities and Visual Performing Arts(CB040 and CB050)

The objective of the humanities and visual and performing arts in a core curriculum is to expand students' knowledge of the human condition and human culture, especially in relation to behaviors, ideas and values expressed in works of human imagination and thought. Through study in disciplines such as literature, philosophy and the visual and performing arts, students will engage in critical analysis, form aesthetic judgments and develop an appreciation of the arts and humanities as fundamental to the health and survival of any society. Students should have experiences in both the arts and humanities. The exemplary educational objectives are:

To demonstrate awareness of the scope and variety of works in the arts and humanities.

To understand those works as expressions of individual and human values within an historical and social context.

To respond critically to works in the arts and humanities.

To engage in the creative process or interpretive performance and comprehend the physical and intellectual demands required of the author or visual or performing artist.

To articulate an informed personal reaction to works in the arts and humanities.

To develop an appreciation for the aesthetic principles that guide or govern the humanities and arts.

To demonstrate knowledge of the influence of literature, philosophy and/or the arts on intercultural experiences.

Humanities/Fine Arts Elective(s) - must be selected from the following Core Curriculum for Humanities/Fine Arts courses:

TIER 2 - CORE DOMAINS

Humanity, Creativity and the Aesthetic Experience - This learning category focuses on the value of literature, philosophy, and the visual and performing arts. You will be able to critically analyze and form artistic judgments about the arts and humanities.

Component Area of Social and Behavioral Sciences(CB060, CB070 and CB080)

The objective of a social and behavioral science component of a core curriculum is to increase students' knowledge of how social and behavioral scientists discover, describe and explain the behaviors and interactions among individuals, groups, institutions, events and ideas. Such knowledge will better equip students to understand themselves and the roles they play in addressing the issues facing humanity. The exemplary educational objectives are:

To employ the appropriate methods, technologies, and data that social and behavioral scientists use to investigate the human condition.

To examine social institutions and processes across a range of historical periods, social structures, and cultures.

To use and critique alternative explanatory systems or theories.

To develop and communicate alternative explanations or solutions for contemporary social issues.

To analyze the effects of historical, social, political, economic, cultural and global forces on the areas under study.

To comprehend the origins and evolution of U.S. and Texas political systems, with a focus on the growth of political institutions, the constitutions of the U.S. and Texas, federalism, civil liberties, and civil and human rights.

To understand the evolution and current role of the U.S. in the world.

To differentiate and analyze historical evidence (documentary and statistical) and differing points of view.

To recognize and apply reasonable criteria for the acceptability of historical evidence and social research.

To analyze, critically assess and develop creative solutions to public policy problems.

To recognize and assume one's responsibility as a citizen in a democratic society by learning to think for oneself, by engaging in public discourse and by obtaining information through the news media and other appropriate information sources about politics and public policy.

To identify and understand differences and commonalties within diverse cultures.

Social/Behavioral Science Elective(s) - must be selected from the following Core Curriculum for Social/Behavioral Sciences courses:

TIER 1 - CORE FOUNDATIONS

Critical Reading and Writing - This learning category prepares you to analyze and interpret printed materials for a variety of different courses. You will be asked to produce clear, correct, and coherent work.

Self and Society - This learning category is designed to compare and contrast your knowledge of social behaviors. You will find opportunities to question the roles both you and others play in addressing the issues of our society.

Critical Issues in the State-Federal Relationship - This learning category focuses on the investigation of various issues and being able to reflect on how these issues affect you and others. You will be asked to reflect on your contributions as a responsible member of society.

The colleges of DCCCD included courses in the Core Curriculum that address other important issues that affect the quality of students' lives and work.

The wellness and human experience learning category in the Core Curriculum promotes wellness and allows students to explore various dimensions of the human experience in order to enhance their physical, social, financial, intellectual, emotional and aesthetic well-being.

Core Curriculum Institutional Option Courses include:

TIER 1 - CORE FOUNDATIONS

Wellness and the Human Experience - This learning category allows you to explore a wide range of courses related to who you are and how you relate to the world. The course offers an opportunity for you to examine your physical, social, financial, intellectual, emotional and aesthetic well-being.